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British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday that a delayed vote in Parliament on her Brexit deal will “definitely” go ahead later this month, as she promised to set out measures to win over skeptical lawmakers.

May told the BBC that in the coming days she will give more details about measures addressing Northern Ireland and concern over the Irish border. She also promised a greater role for Parliament in negotiations over future trade relations with the European Union as a sweetener, and added that “we are still working on” getting extra assurances from Brussels to secure domestic support for her deal.

May struck a withdrawal agreement with the EU in November, but that deal needs Parliament’s approval. In December, May decided to postpone a parliamentary vote intended to ratify the agreement at the last minute after it became clear that it would be overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Commons.

Lawmakers are resuming debate on the deal Wednesday, before a vote expected to be held around Jan. 15.

If the deal is voted down, Britain risks crashing out of the EU on March 29 with no agreement in place, a messy outcome that could plunge the country into its worst recession for decades.

May’s Brexit deal is unpopular with British lawmakers across the spectrum, and the main sticking point is the insurance policy known as the “backstop” – a measure that would keep the U.K. tied to EU customs rules in order to guarantee there is no hard border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland, which won’t belong to the bloc after Brexit.

EU officials have insisted that the withdrawal agreement can’t be renegotiated, although they also stressed that the backstop was meant only as a temporary measure of last resort.

As part of her efforts to win support for her deal, May on Sunday reiterated that the agreement she negotiated was the only one that respects the 2016 referendum result, protects jobs and provides certainty to people and businesses.

She warned in the Mail on Sunday newspaper that critics of her Brexit deal risk damaging Britain’s democracy and its economy by opposing her plan.
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Germany has Alternative for Germany, France has the National Front, Italy has The League and Spain now has VOX, the latest far-right actor to emerge on Europe’s political scene after an unexpectedly strong showing in local elections last month in Andalusia, the Spanish southern region until now considered a Socialist bastion.

Violent protests erupted following the Dec. 2 vote, as leftist leader Pablo Iglesias called for an “anti-fascist mobilization.”

His followers camped out in front of the regional parliament in Seville, threatening to block access to VOX party representatives.

Protesters set cars on fire and vandalized businesses.

But the results were clear and the protests did not change the reality that the populist, anti-establishment fever had arrived in Spain.

​Seats lost

The Socialist party and its far left ally, Podemos, lost seats and could no longer muster a governing majority in the regional parliament. Support for the mainstream center-right People’s Party and the Citizens party remained static while 11 percent of votes were swept up by VOX, whose support may be crucial to form a new regional government.

“While polls anticipated gains by VOX, these results have exceeded all expectations by wide margins,” said Ignacio Jurado, a political science professor the University of York. VOX, he said, “becomes for the first time a parliamentary force in Spain.”

VOX leader Santiago Abascal, a political upstart whose violent discourses against immigration, feminism and regional separatism have gained him a strong national following, declared he would go on to “throw Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez out of the Moncloa,” the palace that serves as the official residence.

VOX votes in Andalusia rose from 18,500 in the 2015 elections to almost 400,000 last month, and analysts expect the numbers to multiply by similar proportions in other parts of Spain.

Unlike other populist movements that are sweeping Europe, Spain’s emerging rightists are not necessarily pushing for an exit from the European Union.

Abascal said he wants to keep Spain in the European Union. He has in the past told VOA he instead seeks to change the bloc from within and is focusing his strategy on winning seats in the European Parliament elections set for May. Previously ignored, Europe’s leaders see this year’s poll as the most decisive ever: a de facto referendum on modern European liberal democracy.

​Far right parties

At a meeting of far right parties in Belgium in December, French National Front leader Marine Le Pen called on like-minded forces to take control of the European parliament. She had earlier sent a message of congratulations to Abascal.

Iglesias’ Podemos party had until now been the main beneficiary of disenchantment with the bipartisan status quo that had prevailed in Spain for the past half century.

Iglesias provided key parliamentary support for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to form a government earlier this year. But disdain for Spanish national symbols like the monarchy and the flag alienated many of the kingdom’s traditionally minded voters.

Abascal says much of his support is driven by growing African immigration, which he blames on what he says are overly permissive government policies.

Analysts say the issue was undoubtedly a factor in Andalusia, which has become a main landing zone for migrants crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa.

Voter resentment over the rising number of immigrants was palpable in the run-up to the elections.

“These people are better treated than we are,” said one voter in the town of Jimena de la Frontera, pointing to a hotel that is being used to house migrants.

Her sentiment is providing fertile ground for the populists.

“We will expel anyone who enters our house without permission,” Abascal said before cheering multitudes recently. He pledged to ban the practice of Islam and shut down mosques.

Abascal denies suggestions that his movement bears any resemblance to what Spain saw in the 20th century.

“The stigma attached to the far right over memories of the Franco dictatorship,” Abascal said, “are fading.” Today, he claims, those memories are eclipsed by the seemingly endless corruption scandals plaguing the establishment at large, from the Socialists to the conservative People’s Party.

A controversial bid by Sanchez to exhume Franco’s remains from their resting place in a national mausoleum could be intended to distract public opinion from other issues, Abascal said.

“People want change,” Abascal said. But he says there is no thirst for radical revolutions. “They won’t go the way of Castro Chavismo,” he said, referring to the radical socialist regimes in the former colonies of Cuba and Venezuela, which Iglesias and other Spanish leftists have at times praised.

​Wide following

The Andalusian election results last month also indicate that VOX has a wide following, cutting across income groups. While Abascal received 30 percent of the vote in the wealthy province of Almeria, he also drew 14 percent of votes in the city of La Linea, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in Spain.

Feminist leader Lidia Falcon says despite the electoral upset, Abascal’s support is limited. His opposition to a law targeting violence against women recently passed unanimously by Spain’s parliament has alienated women voters, Falcon said.

The number of incidents in which male spouses abused their wives rose dramatically, by almost 18 percent, in 2017, according to a study by Spain’s high court.

Differences over the law against gender violence has been a stumbling block in forming a governing coalition between VOX and the center-rightists in Andalusia.

Analysts doubt Abascal can ever hope to score a majority in Catalonia or his native Basque region, whose autonomous governments he wants to abolish, he says, to streamline bureaucracy and create a more efficiently managed central state.

But his polarizing message is securing the support of Spanish unionists in both regions who have lost confidence in the ability of mainstream parties to contain the separatists.

It may also attract votes in poorer regions like Andalusia, which depends on revenues from the richer industrial north.
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The leaders of the populist parties that formed Italy’s government sparred Saturday over more migrants who are stranded on private rescue vessels in the Mediterranean Sea, exposing the widening cracks in their coalition’s position on immigration.  

German humanitarian groups Sea-Watch and Sea Eye are seeking a port where two ships can disembark passengers who were picked up from unseaworthy smugglers’ boats, 32 of them on Dec. 22 and 17 more in recent days.  

Malta allowed the aid boats to shelter from bad weather near its coast and to take on fresh crew, food and water. But the tiny island nation has refused to let any of those migrants step onto Maltese land, saying the rescues took place outside the country’s search-and-rescue area. 

Italian Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, who heads the 5-Star Movement, insisted Saturday that Malta had to allow the 49 people off the ships. De Maio said Italy was willing to take the 10 mothers on the aid vessels and their children.  

Strict policy

Since the coalition government came to power in mid-2018, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who heads the right-wing, anti-migrant League party, has made it strict policy that no private aid group receive authorization to transfer rescued migrants to land in Italian ports.  

Both he and Di Maio have likened private aid vessels to “taxi services” for Libya-based human traffickers. Amid criticism of the Italian government’s new hard-line stance, they also have reminded other European Union nations that Italy has taken in hundreds of thousands of rescued migrants as asylum seekers in recent years. 

Di Maio stressed Saturday that Italy was offering to accept the limited number of women and children from the rescue ships to keep families together. Such a gesture, he said, would also give “a good moral slap” to EU nations that have ignored Italy’s insistence that the burden of caring for rescued asylum seekers be shared.  

“We’re not going backward on migration policy, which has allowed us to reduce disembarking considerably,” Di Maio said. 

But Salvini contradicted his governing partner, telling journalists Italy intended to stick with its private rescue vessel ban and wouldn’t be taking the 10 mothers and their children. 

“We opened our hearts and our wallets. Now, it’s someone else’s turn,” Salvini said.  

As for any possible softening of Italy’s immigration policy, Salvini also tweeted, “I’m not changing my mind.” 

Both politicians slammed Malta for refusing to let the 49 disembark, but the EU nation retorted that it had rescued and permitted onto on its shores 250 migrants between Christmas and New Year’s.  

‘Strain on our services’

The recent rescues “are putting a strain on our services,” Maltese Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia said, adding that Italian authorities had not articulated a clear position about the migrants on the aid boats because of the contradictory statements by Italy’s leaders. 

Farrugia has said the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, was working on an ad hoc plan to find countries where the 250 migrants in Malta and the 49 on the aid boats could have asylum applications processed. 

While politicians squabbled, Sea-Watch appealed on Twitter for a rapid, “reasonable solution that guarantees a port, medical care and food to women, children and men at the mercy of the waves.”  

Di Maio’s opening to taking some of the migrants appeared calculated to placate a faction of his party uncomfortable with the government’s rejection of rescued migrants.  

Championing that 5-Star faction is Roberto Fico, the speaker of the Italian Parliament’s lower chamber.  

“We can’t allow human beings, who are fleeing from pain, death and suffering, to be left in unacceptable conditions,” he wrote on Facebook.  
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Russia’s deputy foreign minister brushed back suggestions Saturday that an American being held in Moscow on suspicion of spying could be exchanged for a Russian citizen. 

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, who also holds Canadian, British and Irish citizenship, was detained in Moscow in late December. His arrest has led to speculation that Russia could be using him to bargain for a Russian who pleaded guilty of acting as a foreign agent in the United States. 

But Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that discussing a possible swap involving Whelan and Maria Butina would be premature because Whelan hasn’t been formally charged, according to Russian news agencies. 

“As to the possibility of exchanges of one sort of another, it’s impossible and incorrect to consider the question now when an official charge hasn’t even been presented,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA-Novosti.  

“Charges will be presented in the near future,” he said, according to the Interfax agency. 

Espionage charges

Some Russian news reports earlier cited unnamed sources as saying Whelan had been indicted on espionage charges that carry a possible prison sentence of 20 years. 

Officials haven’t given details of Whelan’s suspected activities and he was initially identified only as an American. His concurrent Canadian, British and Irish citizenships became known on Friday. 

U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. visited Whelan on Wednesday in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, a 130-year-old facility noted for strict conditions. Britain, Canada and Ireland have applied for consular access to him.  

Whelan, 48. was discharged from the Marines for bad conduct. He works as the global security director for a U.S. automobile parts manufacturer and lives in Michigan. 

His family has said he was in Moscow to attend a wedding.  In a column published by The Washington Post on Friday, his twin brother, David, urged the U.S. government to pressure Russia to release him. 

“Paul is a kind and considerate brother, son and uncle, and a generous and loyal friend,” he wrote. “He travels as often as he can, both for work and pleasure. He is many things to many people, but he is not a spy.” 

Paul Whelan established an account on VKontakte, a social media service similar to Facebook that is popular among Russians, which showed he had scores of contacts in Russia. Many attended universities affiliated with the military, civil aviation or technical studies. Many share his interest in sports and firearms. 

Another arrest

Also Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said it was seeking information about a Russian who was arrested Dec. 29 in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific.  

In a statement, the ministry said Sergei Makarenko was sent to the U.S. state of Florida after his arrest and that it wanted consular access to him. 

The Saipan Tribune reported that Makarenko was indicted in 2017 in Florida for the alleged illegal shipment of military goods to Russia. 

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said Makarenko’s arrest was “the latest attack on a citizen of Russia outside the framework of international law,” Interfax reported.  
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A former North Korean diplomat who staged a high-profile defection to the South on Saturday urged an old colleague who has gone missing in Italy to defect to Seoul, following a report that he was seeking asylum in the United States.

Jo Song Gil, the 44-year-old who was until recently North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, disappeared with his wife after leaving the embassy without notice in early November, South Korean lawmakers said Thursday.

Jo has applied for asylum in the United States and is under the protection of Italian intelligence, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper said Friday, citing an unidentified diplomatic source.

The State Department and the U.S. embassy in Seoul did not immediately respond to a query from Reuters regarding the report.

In an open letter, Thae Yong Ho, Pyongyang’s former deputy ambassador to Britain, who said he went to the same university and worked with Jo before defecting to South Korea in 2016, urged Jo to follow in his footsteps.

To defect to the South is an “obligation, not a choice” for North Korean diplomats committed to unification, Thae said, calling Seoul “the outpost” for that task.

“If you come to South Korea, the day when our suffering colleagues and North Korean citizens are liberated from the fetters would be moved forward,” Thae said in the letter released on his website. “If you come to Seoul, even more of our colleagues would follow suit, and the unification would be accomplished by itself.”

Thae said his family visited Jo in Rome in 2008, where the latter was studying from 2006 to 2009. He guided them to sites such as St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

South Korea could not be “heaven on earth” but a place where Jo can realize his wishes, Thae said, highlighting the ardent desire for unification among many of the roughly 32,000 defectors there.

“The defectors may not be as wealthy as South Koreans,” Thae added. “But isn’t it the only thing you and I, as North Korean diplomats, should do the rest of our lives — to bring about unification and hand over a unified nation to our children?”
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For any world-class athlete, losing most of his or her vision would be a devastating setback. For former Portuguese boxer Jorge Pina however, it was an opportunity to give back to young people in his country. VOA’s Elizabeth Cherneff has more.
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Norwegian Air Shuttle said Friday one of its Boeing 737s has been stuck in Iran for three weeks after an unscheduled landing because of engine problems, as U.S. restrictions reportedly create headaches for the airline and possibly passengers.

The aircraft was en route from Dubai to Oslo with 192 passengers and crew members when it carried out a “safety landing” in Shiraz in southwestern Iran because of engine trouble Dec. 14, a Norwegian Air Shuttle spokesman, Andreas Hjornholm, told AFP.

While passengers were able to fly on to Oslo the following day on another aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max has been stuck on Iranian soil where the airline’s mechanics are trying to repair it, Hjornholm said.

Parts needed

According to specialized websites, the repair work has encountered problems because international sanctions bar the airline from sending spare parts to Iran.

With the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trump administration decided to re-impose sanctions on Tehran.

Norwegian Air Shuttle refused to comment on those reports.

“I can only say that we are working with several options to get the plane back on the wings, and right now we are waiting for our technicians to be able to service the plane and to get it working,” Hjornholm said.

The incident has fueled jokes on social media.

“Iran has become a Bermuda Triangle that feeds on planes,” one Iranian Twitter user wrote.

Problem for passengers, crew

It could also pose problems for the plane’s passengers and crew members if they want to travel to the U.S. in future.

Since 2015, anyone who has traveled to seven countries considered at risk (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) since March 2011 is excluded from the U.S. visa waiver program applied to most Europeans.

According to Hjornholm, the passengers and crew on the Dubai-Oslo flight officially entered Iran and stayed overnight at a hotel, Dec. 14-15.

The US embassy in Oslo was not available for comment.

Last year, former NATO secretary general Javier Solana was refused entry to the U.S. because he had visited Iran for the inauguration ceremony of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country will host the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan for a meeting geared toward bringing peace to Afghanistan.

Erdogan spoke Friday at a joint news conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is making his first visit to Turkey since he came to power in August.

Erdogan said the trilateral meeting would take place in Istanbul after Turkey’s March local election.

Khan told reporters he hoped the meeting would bring “badly needed peace” to Afghanistan.

Erdogan, meanwhile, welcomed Pakistan’s decision to hand over schools affiliated with exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen to a Turkish government foundation. Turkey blames Gulen for a 2016 failed coup.

Khan on Thursday visited the tomb of the 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalaladdin Rumi in the city of Konya.

 
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A suspected case of the deadly Ebola virus has been reported by a Swedish hospital, officials said Friday, adding that the patient has been isolated.

Region Uppsala, which oversees several hospitals and medical clinics north of Stockholm, says a test had been carried out on the patient, who was not identified, adding a result would be available late Friday.

In its statement, Region Uppsala said it was so far “only a matter of suspicion,” adding “other diseases are quite possible.”

It did not say where the patient had traveled, but Sweden’s TT news agency said the patient had returned from a trip to Burundi three weeks ago and had not visited any region with the Ebola virus.

The authorities said the hospital in Enkoping where the patient was first admitted had its emergency room shut down and the staff who treated the patient were “cared for.” The patient was eventually transferred to an infection clinic in Uppsala.

“The patient came in Friday morning and reportedly was vomiting blood which may be a symptom of Ebola infection,” hospital spokesman Mikael Kohler told local newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning. He was not immediately available for further comment.

Eastern Congo currently faces an Ebola outbreak. All major outbreaks have been in Africa, though isolated cases have been reported outside the continent. The hemorrhagic fever’s virus is spread via contact with the bodily fluids of those infected.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have held telephone consultations centering on Syria.

In the Friday call, Putin and Netanyahu “focused on developments in Syria, including in light of the United States’ stated intention to withdraw its troops from that country. They pointed to the need for the final defeat of terrorism and speedy achievement of a political settlement in Syria,” a Kremlin statement said.

Netanyahu also offered condolences following an apartment building collapse in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk this week that killed 39 people, the statement said.
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Two of Britain’s largest international airports are planning to install military-grade anti-drone defense systems to avoid attacks like the one that grounded nearly 1,000 flights at London’s Gatwick Airport over the Christmas holidays.

Last month, British authorities sought help from the military after a number of drone sightings over Gatwick, Britain’s second-busiest airport, forced it to shut down, disrupting travel plans of tens of thousands of people just before Christmas.

British media said the military deployed technology similar to the Israeli-designed Drone Dome system, which can detect and disable a drone by jamming its communication frequencies.

Airport security officials worldwide are studying the issue.

Officials at London’s Heathrow Airport and Gatwick on Thursday confirmed the purchase of the anti-drone systems but would not say if they were the same as the one used by the military. The reports of the purchase first appeared in The Times.

The airport purchases were made despite a comment last month, in which Security Minister Ben Wallace said Britain’s security forces had detection systems that could be deployed throughout the country to combat the threat of drones.
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Tensions between the U.S. and Turkey are threatening to resurface following President Donald Trump’s apparent walking back of his commitment to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and end support for a Syrian Kurdish militia. 

Washington’s backing of the YPG Kurdish militia in its war against the Islamic State group pushed U.S.-Turkish relations to a breaking point. Ankara links the militia to the Kurdish rebel group PKK, which has been fighting a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey. 

Trump’s declaration of victory over IS and vow to quickly withdraw about 2,000 American forces based mainly with the YPG ushered in hopes of a breakthrough in strained ties with Ankara. Trump on Wednesday, though, said, “I never said fast or slow. Somebody said four months, but I did not say that either.”

Adding to Ankara’s nervousness, Trump said, “We want to protect the Kurds [in Syria].” The U.S. president is facing growing national and international pressure over the decision to leave Syria and abandon the YPG. Turkish military forces continue to mass ahead of an expected strike against the YPG. 

“In Ankara, the strategic thinking is a threat to Turkish national security emanating from Syria,” said former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen. “It’s an extension of PKK controlling the Syrian border, and Ankara has repeatedly said this will not be allowed.” 

​Green light

Trump’s initial statements of an unconditional quick pullout from Syria were widely interpreted in Turkey as a green light for a Turkish military operation against the YPG. However, Trump’s latest comments of a more gradual withdrawal and protection of the Kurds are seen as putting Ankara’s plans in question. 

“There was euphoria by the [Turkish] government. It was a historic decision for Ankara by Trump to leave Syria immediately,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci, of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. 

“But now Trump is also classically acting again, trying not to leave without giving protection to Kurds. And Turkey in this respect cannot do anything about this; Turkey will have to accept Kurds are under American protection,” Bagci added.  

Analysts suggest Ankara also is likely to be alarmed by growing calls for the creation of a buffer zone between Turkish and YPG forces along the Syrian border. South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, speaking to reporters after meeting with Trump, said the president was considering such a move. 

Roderich Kiesewetter, chair of the German parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, is backing a similar initiative. “We need a sanctuary, and the United Nations could do that for the Kurds of northern Syria, under U.N. influence,” Kiesewetter said Wednesday to German radio. 

“The creation of buffer zone is to protect the Kurds. In this respect, it’s not good for Turkey. Turkey will lose the opportunity to fight the YPG troops there,” said Bagci. “Turkey will oppose, but at the end of the day they will have to accept.”  

Pre-emptive strike

Analysts suggest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be tempted to thwart any buffer zone by launching a pre-emptive military operation in Syria, east of the Euphrates River, where most of the YPG forces are based. Key March local elections could also enter into Erdogan’s calculations, given growing voter dissatisfaction over a slowing economy. 

“The timing of an operation east of the Euphrates may be an attempt to solidify the voter base,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of GlobalSource Partners, an investment analysis service. “But these attempts are futile at the end. People care whether they can bring bread home, and if they can’t, a very clear victory in some remote location doesn’t mean much to them.”  

Whether Ankara launches a Syrian operation is likely to depend on Moscow’s cooperation. Russian missiles control much of Syrian airspace. Turkey’s last cross-border operation against the YPG in Syria’s Afrin province relied on the use of air support.  

The Turkish defense and foreign ministers, along with the intelligence chief, reportedly failed recently to secure permission to use Syrian airspace during a visit to Moscow. Analysts suggest Moscow is balancing conflicting interests of seeking to court Ankara in a bid to draw it away from its NATO partners, while knowing Damascus will be opposed to Turkish seizure of more Syrian territory. 

Ankara also has conflicting interests. A U.S. delegation of judiciary and security officials Thursday began a two-day visit to Ankara to discuss Turkey’s bid to extradite U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen for his alleged role in masterminding the 2016 failed coup. Ankara in the past has accused Washington of foot-dragging over its extradition calls. 

Holding Gulen to account and reining in his network of followers remains a strategic priority of Ankara’s. Analysts suggest concessions by Washington to Ankara over Gulen’s extradition could well help to assuage Turkish concerns over Syria.
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Political pressure is growing on the European Union from some member states to rethink freedom of movement rules and to start introducing restrictions to stem what they see as disruptive migration.

The latest challenge doesn’t lie with the refugee crisis and the irritation with non-EU migrants easily moving across the continent and cherry-picking which European state to try to settle in, but the concern that migration between EU countries is further depopulating economically depressed regions and towns, condemning them to a gloomy future of being “left behind” permanently.

Last month, the pro-EU former British prime minister, Tony Blair, added his voice to the idea that free movement should be re-thought. Blair, who is campaigning for Britain to hold a second referendum on whether to leave the EU, said a rethink could help Britain remain in the Brussels bloc under new membership terms.

“If you take freedom of movement and the question of immigration, this is an issue all over European politics today,” he told the BBC. Many Britons who voted for Brexit cited free movement as their main reason for wanting to quit the EU.

‘Sacred pillar’

Freedom of movement is one of the ‘sacred’ pillars of the EU’s single market and seen by Brussels as crucial for European integration. Many younger Europeans see it as a birthright, allowing them to travel, work and study in any EU member states they want. And millions have embraced the opportunity to relocate.

But central and southern European member states have seen a hollowing out of their populations, thanks to youth emigration, which in turn is putting a brake on their economic growth and leaving behind ghost towns inhabited by pensioners and the less-skilled and resourceful. Left with aging populations, countries that have seen high levels of migration are finding there are fewer young working taxpayers to fund increased health care and pension needs.

In the past 20 years, more than 3.6 million mostly young Romanians have left their native country. And a recent survey suggests that half of all young people still living in Romania have concrete plans to leave. Since Poland joined the EU in 2004, more than 2 million Poles have left.

And Latvia has been especially impacted by migration. Since its accession to the EU, nearly a fifth of the nation has left to work in other more affluent states, mainly Britain, Ireland and Germany. The exodus has prompted fears of Latvia becoming a “disappearing nation.”

Last year, the Latvian government appointed an ambassador with the main task of wooing Latvians back home. Next door, Lithuania has also experienced an exodus, seeing its population shrink by 17.5 percent.

Time to rethink?

Blair isn’t alone among prominent European politicians to question whether it is time for a rethink.

In November, Romania’s finance minister, Eugen Teodorovici, warned that migration of many young skilled Romanians is having deleterious effects on the country by causing a “brain drain” from some industries.

“If someone goes to Germany and keeps getting the right to work, then he will never return to Croatia or Romania, where he left,” he said. “We need to learn at the European level that as one area becomes poorer, another becomes richer,” he added.

Teodorovici argues young Europeans who have migrated should be issued with five-year work permits, after which they would have to leave and possibly return home.

His remarks prompted uproar both in Romania and Brussels. But some other Central European governments are exploring ways to entice back workers, including considering offering financial incentives to encourage youngsters to return.

Advocates of free movement say migration fears are being overblown, arguing money workers send back to their families is crucial for depressed regions. They point out depopulation is being caused as much by low birth rates.

Many youngsters eventually return, they say, often coming back more skilled, affluent and entrepreneurial, which adds to development potential in their home towns. According to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, the number of emigres returning home in 2016 was about 40 percent of those who left.

Efforts to limit freedom of movement are likely to fail, with young Europeans especially critical of the idea that there should be within Europe free circulation of money, goods and services but not of labor.

Atis Sjanits, the Latvian diplomat charged with enticing young Latvians back home, has argued that changing the rules now isn’t possible. He says the focus should be on making it more attractive for emigres to return.
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Blue was a rare, expensive color in ancient times, whether it was derived from lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan some 6,000 years ago, made by blending copper with other elements throughout the Middle East and in ancient China, or mixing an extract of the indigo plant with clay and resin by Mayans in Mesoamerica. Now, a centuries-old tradition of dyeing blue cloth with delicate patterns in parts of eastern Europe has been recognized for its cultural importance by UNESCO. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Britain’s impending departure from the European Union poses a big risk, but domestic demand is still fueling growth in the German economy, Europe’s largest, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in an interview published Thursday.

Altmaier said Brexit, global trade conflicts and changes in automotive industry approvals had slowed economic growth in the second half of 2018, but Germany’s gross domestic product looked set to enter its 10th year of expansion in 2019.

“The order books of industry and the trades are full,” Altmaier told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. “The chances are good that economic growth will continue for a 10th consecutive year,” the longest period of continuous growth since the 1960s.

The German government last month cut its economic growth forecast for 2018 to around 1.5 to 1.6 percent from 1.8 percent.

The German economy has shifted into a lower gear as Brexit and trade conflicts sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies cause business uncertainty.

German exporters are also struggling with a more general slowdown of foreign demand as the global economy cools.

Altmaier cautioned that the prospects for continued economic expansion hinged on the ability of German industry to adapt to promising new areas such as electric mobility, sustainable energy production and artificial intelligence.

He said Brexit and a shortage of skilled labor posed risks to the economy, and many companies had not invested enough in expanding production. He called for quick parliamentary approval of a new immigration law aimed at filling those gaps.

Making it easier to attract skilled workers to Germany could boost economic growth by several tenths of a percentage point, he said, noting that Germany had some 57,000 unfilled trainee positions.

“The growth effects are difficult to quantify, but I expect that a functioning influx of migrants to the labor market could add multiple tenths of a percentage point of additional growth in Germany,” Altmaier told the paper.
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U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman on Wednesday visited the retired U.S. Marine who has been detained on espionage charges in Russia.

He also spoke on the phone with the family of Paul Whelan, 48, according to a State Department statement that did not release any details of the call “due to privacy considerations for Mr. Whelan and his family.” 

It did say, “Ambassador Huntsman expressed his support for Mr. Whelan and offered the embassy’s assistance.”  

Access was granted just hours after U.S. Secretary Mike Pompeo said he expected an explanation of why the American was arrested and demanded his release if the detention was not appropriate. 

On Monday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials said Whelan had been detained Dec. 28 “while carrying out an act of espionage” and that a criminal probe had been ordered. 

The FSB provided no further details, but Russia’s state-run TASS news agency said Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Whelan is employed as director of global security at BorgWarner, an American automotive parts supplier. 

Whelan’s family learned of his arrest only after it was reported by Russian state news outlets, prompting the family to contact congressional representatives and U.S. diplomats. 

“We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being,” the family said.  “His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected.”

Scandals

Whelan’s arrest coincided with several spy scandals that have exacerbated tensions between Russia and the West, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain. 

News of Whelan’s detention came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a New Year’s greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said Moscow was amenable to a continuing dialogue with Washington on a range of topics.

In 2016, Izvestia, a Kremlin-aligned news outlet, reported there were 13 U.S. citizens in Russian jails at the time. The Kremlin has not since published any details on other Americans currently in Russian detention. 

VOA’s Peter Cobus in Moscow contributed to this report.
…

The suspect in the stabbing of three people on New Year’s Eve in Manchester was being held under mental health laws, British police said Tuesday.

Manchester police, however, said in a statement they were continuing to investigate the attack because of suspected terrorism links.

A suspect, whose identity has not been disclosed, has been detained on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. He has not been charged.

Police released no other details, but said the suspect’s home was being searched late Tuesday.

“There is nothing to suggest the involvement of other people in this attack, but confirming this remains a main priority for the investigation,” police said in a statement, adding the counterterrorism probe “remains ongoing.”

A witness to the attack, BBC producer Sam Clack, recalled, “I just heard the guy shout, as part of a sentence, ‘Allah.’ ”

“I heard the man say, ‘As long as you keep bombing these countries this is going to keep happening,’ ” Clack told BBC 5 Live radio, according to a Reuters report.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said intelligence suggests there is not a wider threat but that additional police would patrol the streets to reassure the public.

Two of the victims were treated at a local hospital for knife wounds. The third victim was a police officer, who was treated in a hospital for a stab wound to the shoulder and released.

Victoria Station is located near Manchester Arena, where a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

Britain’s threat level is “severe,” the second-highest level, meaning an attack is considered highly likely.
…

Think of public spaces in big cities, and formal parks, bustling markets and grand squares come to mind.

Think again.

In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, residents have redrawn the map and come up with innovative ways for locals to congregate in their ancient and fast-changing city.

A boxing ring was built on a bridge. Next to it — architects installed art to amuse commuters as they hurried over the river.

The grimy gaps between garages were turned into a ‘stadium’ where locals could face off over dominoes. Inside the disused garages, bakeries, barbers and beauty salons plied their trade.

It is not how most cities do public spaces, but Tbilisi — which stands at the crossroads of Europe and Asia — has a long history shaped by diverse masters, all of whom left their architectural imprint on the Caucasus.

As the city shakes off decades of Soviet rule and reinvents itself again, developers have bent once-tight planning rules and a building boom is underway — one that is changing the face of the city and jeopardizing the open areas where Georgians meet.

“Left behind … (in) the construction boom, public spaces are still important and constitute a resource, a big treasure to be preserved,” says Nano Zazanashvili, head of the urban policy and research division at Tbilsi’s Department of Urban Development, a city office. “The main challenge of the City Hall is to protect these areas.”

Boxing Bridge

The DKD bridge — which connects two Soviet-era residential districts — is a perfect example of how locals adapted centrally-imposed urban design to fit their own suburban needs.

Flat dwellers in this northeastern sprawl live in the sort of anonymous, concrete blocks typical of any Soviet city.

Beauty is not their selling point, so in the 1990s architects installed informal shops, a hotel and a boxing gym on the bridge, which connects two identikit micro-districts.

The bridge building was part of an outdoor exhibition created for the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial earlier this year.

The event – the first since Georgia regained independence in 1991 – brought together experts to study the city’s rapid transformation and to involve locals in the debate.

“It is the very beginning, not even a first step,” Tinatin Gurgenidze, co-founder of the Biennial, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The local community needs to understand what is the necessity of working on these issues.”

Rich Mix

Downtown, the cityscape makes for an eclectic backdrop.

Deco mansions jostle with Soviet constructivism. Ancient sulphur baths and tiny churches squat at the feet of futuristic skyscrapers, while rickety wooden houses lean into the hills, their gaily painted balconies perched in thin air.

Much of this history is fading into oblivion, sagging walls propped up with outsize beams to stop whole ghost streets crashing to dust.

Other parts of town are bulldozed and built over.

The city center is a decade into a frenetic construction boom, but the drab Gldani suburb mostly cleaves to its 1970s integrity, an era when uniform blocks were built to accommodate workers relocated from older, central neighborhoods.

This dormitory suburb became the area of the city with the highest density of population – and as communism and central control began to crumble, residents stole the chance to tack on ad-hoc balconies, garages and makeshift gardens.

With Georgian independence came a headlong rush to architectural deregulation, free of any supervision or control, changing the look, feel and use of once sacred public spaces.

“People came up with their own solutions to the problems,” said Gurgenidze, who trained in Georgia as an architect. “The informal structures need to be taken into consideration when decision makers and architects plan the future of these areas.”

Informal and Changed

Take the garages — erected in front of flats to park cars in the 1990s, they were later transformed into basic fruit and vegetable shops, bakeries, barbers and beauty salons.

Rented for 40-100 lari ($15 to £38) a month, the self-declared shops generate extra income for the residents and many were legalized after the fact into formal commercial spaces.

Now they face a possible next life.

The mayor of Tbilisi, former soccer star Kakha Kaladze, this year launched an initiative with local backing to replace the ‘garages’ with playgrounds or gardens.

So far, the plan has had limited success.

But according to architect Nikoloz Lekveishvili, locals are regaining the tiny spaces in between to play dominoes, soak up the greenery and relax with neighbors.

“People see this public space as an opportunity,” he said.

Lali Pertenavi, an artist who grew up in Gldani, temporarily turned Block 76 — a local residential building — into an exhibition space in October as part of the biennial. Residents opened their homes to artists, who in turn transformed them into social spaces recalling the best of Soviet-era collectivism.

While a master plan for the whole city is under discussion at municipal level, public spaces for ordinary people are low in the pecking order of priorities.

“Public spaces and green areas are a hot topic in the local debate but people don’t have enough time to fight for it,” said Anano Tsintsabadze, a lawyer and activist managing the Initiative for a Pubic Space, an NGO that focuses on urban planning and supports residents fighting for public spaces.

In parts of the city, such as Saburtalo and Didi Digomi, the community is slowly mobilizing against the privatization of public spaces amid a drive to keep them free and accessible.

“The social tissue has grown more than the local government.

People know what happens in Europe and are asking for more organised, clean urban spaces,” said architect Nikoloz Lekveishvili, co-founder of Timm Architecture, an international network stretching from Milan to Moscow, Istanbul to Tbilisi.

($1 = 2.6550 laris)
…

Populist forces returned with a vengeance to Europe in 2018, seizing power in Italy and extending their grip in countries like Hungary and Poland. In France, street protests erupted demanding the resignation of the president. The populist wave could have major implications for European parliamentary elections scheduled this coming year where the political center now faces an assault from both right and left. Henry Ridgwell has more from Brussels.
…

Ukrainian officials are warning that Russia may be about to escalate its conflict with Ukraine, including possibly launching a breakout offensive from Crimea.

And they accuse Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region of violating the latest cease-fire — dubbed a “New Year’s Truce”— by attacking Ukrainian positions with a heavy-caliber weapon banned under the Minsk peace agreements.

An increasing number of Russian military convoys have been spotted moving toward the border between Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, and Ukrainian-held territory, and there have been ominous fighter-jet redeployments to Crimean airfields, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

“Russia continues to build up and prepare its military forces for possible offensive operations against Ukraine from the Crimean peninsula and the East,” the institute has reported. It says Russia could conduct such operations on short notice.

Analysts say the movements are threatening, but they are divided over the intent, with some suggesting President Vladimir Putin is keeping the West guessing.

“The data suggests that Putin is preparing to attack, although alternative interpretations are possible,” the institute said.

“The unpredictability is the point,” a senior European defense official told VOA. “Putin is testing Ukraine and the West to see if he’ll be checked, to see what he can get away with, and maybe with an eye to securing another summit early this year with [U.S. President] Donald Trump,” he added.

The Russian leader issued New Year greetings to dozens of global leaders on Sunday, including Trump, saying relations between the U.S. and Russia are the key to “ensuring strategic stability and international security.” Putin added that Russia is “open to dialogue with the United States on the most extensive agenda.”

With tensions running high between Ukraine and Russia after Russian coastal forces seized three Ukrainian vessels on Nov. 25 — a tugboat and two patrol boats — in international waters in the Black Sea near Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula, fears are mounting in Kyiv of another major confrontation.

The press service of the Joint Forces Operation, the military command structure overseeing Ukraine’s defense against the Russian-led military intervention in eastern Ukraine, said Ukrainian positions near Novotashkivsk were struck by 120 millimeter mortar rounds Monday night.

Weapons with calibers of more than 100mm are banned under the 2015 Minsk II agreement from a 50-kilometer zone running along the front line between Ukrainian and Russian-led forces in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

Russian-led forces shelled Ukrainian positions also near the port city of Mariupol with 82mm mortars, the press service said.

A former adviser to Putin, Andrey Illarionov, now one of the Russian leader’s most strident critics, warned last month that Moscow is ready to deploy special forces to seize a vital Communist-era canal that used to provide 85 percent of Crimea’s fresh water before Ukraine blocked it in 2014. He says the peninsula will face a severe water shortage in the summer, impacting farms and factories, as well as households.

llarionov told the Kyiv Post he believes the West has inadvertently given Moscow the green light for further adventurism by failing to sanction Russia for the November incident in the Azov Sea when Russian coastal forces rammed, fired upon and seized three small Ukrainian vessels.

“Putin [thinks he] has nothing to lose. We’ve seen since the Azov Sea incident that the West has not imposed any serious penalties.”

In recent weeks, Russian news outlets have published articles about water shortages on the Crimean peninsula, as well as about Russian military exercises taking place near the narrow land corridor linking Crimea to Ukraine’s Kherson region.

Some analysts suggest that Putin might cast any seizing of the canal as an intervention necessitated to prevent a Ukraine-provoked humanitarian crisis on the peninsula. An occupation of parts of the Kherson region would give Russian forces the ability to tighten their stranglehold on Ukraine’s ports and to interfere with ship movements in and out of Mykolaiv and Mariupol, which are already experiencing sharp decreases in freight traffic.

Among the Russian military movements being observed by Kyiv and Western powers are the redeployments of fighter jets. Just before Christmas, Reuters reported more than a dozen Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets were relocated to Belbek Airbase near Sevastopol from Krymsk airfield in Krasnodar Territory.

The redeployments and military build up is alarming the former commander of U.S. Army Europe, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, who retired last year from active service. The Russia government is seeking to redraw the borders more, he fears. In an interview with the Military Times newspaper Monday, Hodges said, unless there’s greater Western pushback, “they won’t stop until they completely own the Sea of Azov and have choked out Ukraine’s very important seaport of Mariupol.”

“The next phase will probably be land and sea operations that would eventually secure maybe even Mariupol but continue to take the Ukrainian coastline and connect Crimea back up to Russia along the Sea of Azov,” Hodges said. “It’s not going to happen in the next six months, but this is the direction they’re taking until they completely own the Black Sea and they’ve isolated Ukraine,” he added.

 
…

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart urged the World Anti-Doping Agency to reinstate the ban on Russia, calling the country’s return to the sports fold “a total joke.”

“The situation is a total joke and an embarrassment for WADA and the global anti-doping system,” Tygart said in a statement on Tuesday, after Russia missed a December 31 deadline to hand over data from its anti-doping laboratory in Moscow.

The deadline was set in September, when WADA lifted a ban on the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, paving the way for Russian athletes to return to competition across all sports after a report which uncovered a state-sponsored doping program in Russia.

“In September, WADA secretly moved the goal posts and reinstated Russia against the wishes of athletes, governments and the public,” Tygart said. “In doing this WADA guaranteed Russia would turn over the evidence of its state-supported doping scheme by today.

“No one is surprised this deadline was ignored and it’s time for WADA to stop being played by the Russians and immediately declare them non-compliant for failing yet again to meet the deadline.”

WADA personnel traveled to Russia in December but were unable to extract all of the promised data.

WADA said at the time its team could not complete its mission “due to an issue raised by the Russian authorities that the team’s equipment to be used for the data extraction was required to be certified under Russian law.”

With WADA waiting and the December 31 deadline looming, RUSADA chief Yury Ganus had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene to stave off another ban that put Russia “on the brink of the abyss”.

However, the Kremlin said RUSADA’s concerns bout new sanctions were “without foundation.”

 
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Paul Whelan, the American citizen detained in Moscow on Friday on espionage charges, has been identified as a retired U.S. Marine.

Whelan’s family posted messages on social media Tuesday, saying they first grew concerned when he did not contact them on Friday.

“‘We have read reports of the arrest in Moscow of Paul Whelan, our son & brother,” the statement reads. “Paul is a retired Marine and was visiting Moscow to attend a wedding.”

The family learned of his arrest only after it was reported by Russian state news outlets, prompting the family to contact congressional representatives and U.S. diplomats.

“We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being,” the family said. “His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected.”

On Monday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials said Whelan had been detained on December 28 “while carrying out an act of espionage,” and that they have opened a criminal probe.

They provided no further details, but Russia’s state-run TASS news agency said that Whelan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

A State Department spokesperson said Monday the United States is aware of Russian authorities’ detention of a U.S. citizen.

“We have been formally notified of the detention by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the official said in an emailed statement to VOA. “Russia’s obligations under the Vienna Convention require them to provide consular access. We have requested this access and expect Russian authorities to provide it.” The State Department did not provide further details, citing privacy concerns.

Tensions between Moscow and the West

The arrest coincides with several spy scandals that have exacerbated tensions between Russia and the West, including the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain, along with the recent U.S. conviction of Russian citizen Maria Butina for acting as an illegal foreign agent.

Butina pleaded guilty to acting under the direction of a Russian official to establish relationships with influential Americans.

News of Whelan’s detention came less than 24 hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a New Year’s greeting to U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said Moscow is amenable to a continuing dialogue with Washington on a range of topics.

In 2016, Izvestia, a Kremlin-aligned news outlet, reported that there were 13 U.S. citizens in Russian jails at the time. The Kremlin has not since published any details on other Americans currently in Russian detention.
…

Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will keep pushing for global solutions to challenges in 2019 and also has to take greater responsibility in the world. 

Closing a politically turbulent 2018 in Germany, Merkel devotes a significant part of her annual New Year’s address to the merits of bringing a multilateral approach to international problems — a style she has consistently defended in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” tactics. 

Climate change, migration, terrorism

The fourth-term chancellor pointed to curbing climate change, managing migration and combating terrorism as the kinds of challenges that benefit from a wide view. Germany starts a two-year stint on the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 1. 

“We want to resolve all these questions in our own interest, and we can do that best if we consider the interests of others,” Merkel said in a text of the message her office released ahead of a scheduled Monday broadcast. 

“That is the lesson from the two world wars of the last century,” she added. “But this conviction is no longer shared today by everyone, and certainties of international cooperation are coming under pressure.” 

“In such a situation, we must again stand up for, argue and fight more strongly for our convictions,” Merkel said. “And we must take on more responsibility in our own interests.” 

‘Global solutions’

She said Germany will push for “global solutions” at the U.N. and noted the country is spending more on humanitarian aid and defense. She said Berlin wants to make the European Union “more robust and able to make decisions.” 

Turning to home, Merkel acknowledged that many Germans have “struggled very much” with her latest government amid persistent infighting since it took office in March after unprecedentedly long talks to form the governing coalition. She said it had been “an extremely difficult political year.” 

‘New beginning’

Germany’s leader for 13 years said she set the stage for a “new beginning” in late October by announcing she won’t seek a fifth term. She also gave up the leadership of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, Germany’s main center-right party, which has been led since Dec. 7 by ally Annegret Kramp Karrenbauer. 

Merkel has said she plans to remain chancellor for the rest of this parliamentary term, which is supposed to run until 2021. But questions remain over whether she will actually stay that long, not least because of tensions within her governing coalition. 

“Democracy lives from change,” she said in her new year message. “We build on what our predecessors left us, and shape things in the present for those who will come after us.”

                 
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May urged lawmakers on Monday to back her Brexit deal, promising that it would allow the country to “turn a corner” and let the government focus on solving domestic problems such as housing and a skill shortage.

May made the appeal in a New Year’s message little more than two weeks before a make-or-break vote in parliament on her plan for Britain’s exit from the European Union which is due to happen on March 29.

The vote, which May postponed in December to avoid defeat, will be a pivotal moment for the world’s fifth-largest economy: it will determine whether Britain follows her plan for a managed exit and relatively close economic ties, or faces massive uncertainty about the country’s next step.

“New Year is a time to look ahead and in 2019 the UK will start a new chapter. The Brexit deal I have negotiated delivers on the vote of the British people and in the next few weeks MPs (members of parliament) will have an important decision to make,” May said in a video released by her office. “If parliament backs a deal, Britain can turn a corner.”

Conservative Party

Attempting to appeal to those within her Conservative Party who have criticized her leadership, and responding to criticism from opponents that Brexit has stalled her domestic agenda, May stressed her desire to move beyond the EU exit debate.

“Important though Brexit is, it is not the only issue that counts,” she said, highlighting policies to address a lack of housing, skills shortages and strengthen the economy. “Together I believe we can start a new chapter with optimism and hope.”

The vote on May’s Brexit deal with the EU is scheduled to take place in the week beginning Jan. 14.

May is still seeking reassurances from Brussels that a deeply unpopular fallback arrangement within her proposed deal, over the Northern Irish border, would only be temporary.

Northern Ireland

It seeks to prevent the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland if a better solution to keep trade flowing freely cannot be agreed.

The so-called backstop is the main obstacle between May and a victory in parliament, costing her the support of dozens of members of her own party and the small Northern Irish party that props up her minority government.

The government and businesses are ramping up preparations in case a deal cannot be reached to smooth Britain’s exit from the bloc, amid warnings of delays at borders and disruption to supplies of medicines, food and components.

 
…

France’s embattled president, Emmanuel Macron, vowed on Monday to press on with his reform agenda in 2019 despite a spate of “yellow vest” protests that have challenged his government and extended a plunge in his approval ratings.

Promised overhauls of France’s unemployment benefits, civil service and public pensions will be undertaken in the coming year, Macron said in his televised New Year message.

Unapologetic tone

Confounding some expectations of a more contrite message, Macron struck an unapologetic note as he urged voters to face up to economic realities underpinning recently enacted reforms of French labor rules, and others yet to come.

“In recent years, we’ve engaged in a blatant denial of reality,” Macron said in the address, delivered — unusually —  from a standing position in his Elysee Palace office.

“We can’t work less, earn more, cut taxes and increase spending.”

In a veiled attack on the far-left and hard-right groupings active on the fringes of the often violent protests, Macron also decried self-appointed “spokespeople for a hateful mob” who he said had targeted foreigners, Jews, gays and the press.

Popularity at all-time low

Almost 20 months after he became France’s youngest president, Macron’s popularity is at the lowest level recorded in modern French history.

It stood at just 24 percent in late December compared to 47 percent a year earlier, according to a Journal du Dimanche aggregate of polls, as he struggled to draw a line under numerous setbacks.

The current wave of demonstrations, which have brought disruption and destruction to Paris and other major cities, has yet to abate despite fiscal giveaways and an increase in the wage for the poorest workers.

Protesters were expected to join the New Year crowds thronging Paris’s Champs-Elysees Avenue overnight, amid a heavy police presence.

Bodyguard scandal

A scandal over Macron’s former bodyguard Alexandre Benalla, who was eventually fired after video emerged of him beating protestors, has resurfaced with the revelation that he continued to travel on diplomatic passports and exchange messages with Macron long after his dismissal.

Macron said efforts to bolster international controls on immigration and tax evasion would be at the heart of European Union proposals he plans to announce in “coming weeks” — to be pursued in parallel with a domestic agenda reconciling ambitious reform with France’s commitment to social solidarity.

“This is the line I have followed since the first day of my mandate, and which I plan to keep following,” he said. “This coming year, 2019, is in my view a decisive one.”
…

The euro currency turns 20 years old on January 1, surviving two tumultuous decades and becoming the world’s No. 2 currency.

After 20 years, the euro has become a fixture in financial markets, although it remains behind the dollar, which dominates the world’s market.

The euro has weathered several major challenges, including difficulties at its launch, the 2008 financial crisis, and a eurozone debt crisis that culminated in bailouts of several countries.

Those crises tested the unity of the eurozone, the 19 European Union countries that use the euro. While some analysts say the turmoil and the euro’s resilience has strengthened the currency and made it less susceptible to future troubles, other observers say the euro will remain fragile unless there is more eurozone integration.

Beginnings 

The euro was born on January 1, 1999, existing initially only as a virtual currency used in financial transactions. Europeans began using the currency in their wallets three years later when the first Euro notes and coins were introduced.

At that time, only 11 member states were using the currency and had to qualify by meeting the requirements for limits on debt, deficits and inflation. EU members Britain and Denmark received opt-outs ahead of the currency’s creation.

The currency is now used by over 340 million people in 19 European Union countries, which are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

Other EU members are required to join the eurozone when they meet the currency’s monetary requirements.

Popularity

Today, the euro is the most popular than it has ever been over the past two decades, despite the rise of populist movements in several European countries that express skepticism toward the European Union.

In a November survey for the European Central Bank, 64 percent of respondents across the eurozone said the euro was a good thing for their country. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they thought the euro was a good thing for Europe.

In only two countries — Lithuania and Cyprus — did a majority of people think the euro is a bad thing for their nation.

That is a big contrast to 2010, the year that both Greece and Ireland were receiving international bailout packages, when only 51 percent of respondents thought the euro was a good thing for their country.

Challenges

The euro faced immediate challenges at its beginning with predictions that the European Central Bank (ECB) was too rigid in its policy and that the currency would quickly fail. The currency wasn’t immediately loved in European homes and businesses either with many perceiving its arrival as a price hike on common goods.

Less than two years after the euro was launched — valued at $1.1747 to the U.S. dollar — it had lost 30 percent of its value and was worth just $0.8240 to the U.S. dollar. The ECB was able to intervene to successfully stop the euro from plunging further.

The biggest challenge to the block was the 2008 financial crisis, which then triggered a eurozone debt crisis that culminated in bailouts of several countries.

Tens of billions of euros were loaned to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Spain, either because those countries ran out of money to save their own banks or because investors no longer wanted to invest in those nations.

The turmoil also highlighted the economic disparity between member states, particularly between the wealthier north and the debt-laden southern nations.

Poorer countries experienced both the advantages and disadvantages to being in the eurozone.

Poorer countries immediately benefited from joining the union, saving trillions of euros due to the lowering borrowing costs the new currency offered.

However, during times of economic downturn, they had fewer options to reverse the turmoil.

Typically in a financial crisis, a country’s currency would plunge, making its goods more competitive and allowing the economy to stabilize. But in the eurozone, the currency in poorer countries cannot devalue because stronger economies like Germany keep it higher.

Experts said the turbulent times of the debt crisis exposed some of the original flaws of the euro project.

However, the euro survived the financial crisis through a combination of steps from the ECB that included negative interest rates, trillions of euros in cheap loans to banks and buying more than 2.6 trillion euros in government and corporate bonds.

Future

ECB chief Mario Draghi was credited with saving the euro in 2012 when he said the bank would do “whatever it takes” to preserve the currency.

Some experts say the flexibility of the bank proves it is able to weather financial challenges and say the turmoil of the past two decades have left the ECB better able to deal with future crises.

However, other observers say that the 19 single currency nations have not done enough to carry out political reforms necessary to better enable the countries to work together on fiscal policy and to prepare for future downturns.

Proposals for greater coordination, including a eurozone banking union as well as a eurozone budget are still in the planning phases.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told U.S. President Donald Trump in a New Year’s letter that the Kremlin is “open to dialogue” on the myriad issues hindering relations between their countries.

The Kremlin published a summary of Putin’s “greeting message” to Trump on Sunday. The summary states the Russian leader wrote: “Russia-U.S. relations are the most important factor behind ensuring strategic stability and international security.”

Trump canceled a formal meeting with Putin scheduled for Dec. 1 at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, tweeting “it would be best for all parties” given Russia’s seizure days earlier of three Ukrainian naval vessels.

Since then, the Kremlin has repeatedly said it is open to dialogue.

The message to Trump was among dozens of holiday greetings Putin sent to other world leaders, each tailored to reflect a bilateral theme. The recipients included Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Putin has backed throughout a civil war that started in 2011.

Putin’s message to Assad “stressed that Russia will continue to provide all-around assistance to the government and people of Syria in their fight against terrorism and efforts to protect state sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to the Kremlin summary.

Moscow hosted talks with Turkey on Saturday in which the two countries agreed to coordinate actions in northern Syria after Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing U.S. forces from the country.

The main group of Kurdish-led forces fighting against Assad with U.S. support has said the U.S. pullout could lead to the revival of the Islamic State group.

Putin, in his message to Assad, “wished the Syrian people the earliest return to peaceful and prosperous life.”

 
…

An international trade association says on-the-job slayings of journalists and news media staff rose again in 2018 following an overall decline during the past half-dozen years.

The International Federation of Journalists said in an annual report set for release Monday that 94 journalists and media workers died in targeted killings, bomb attacks and conflict crossfire this year, 12 more than in 2017.

Before the declines seen in five of the past six years, 121 people working for news organizations were slain in 2012. Since the federation started its annual count in 1990, the year with the most work-related killings, 155, was 2006.

The deadliest country for people who work in the news media this year was Afghanistan, where 16 of the killings occurred. Mexico was next, with 11. Yemen had nine media slayings and Syria eight in 2018.

Beyond the tragedy of lives lost, such killings affect the pursuit of truth and sharing of information in communities and countries where they happen, the president of the International Federation of Journalists said.

“Journalists are targeted because they are witnesses,” the group’s president, Philippe Leruth, told The Associated Press. “And the result of this, when a journalist or many journalists are killed in a country, you see an increase of self-censorship.”

Iraq, where 309 media professionals were killed over the past quarter-century, long topped the federation’s annual list. The federation identified a photojournalist as the one victim in the country this year.

While 2018 brought a worldwide increase, the total remained in the double digits for a second year running. The total of 155 in.

The IFJ connects some 600,000 media professionals from 187 trade unions and associations in more than 140 countries. The group said the new report showed that journalists face dangers apart from the risks of reporting from war zones and covering extremist movements.

“There were other factors, such as the increasing intolerance to independent reporting, populism, rampant corruption and crime, as well as the breakdown of law and order,” the Brussels-based group said in a statement.

Suddenly high on the list, in sixth place, was the United States with five killings. On June 28, a gunman in Annapolis, Maryland, opened fire in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette newspaper and fatally shot four journalists and a sales associate. The man had threatened the newspaper after losing a defamation lawsuit.

The Oct. 2 slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post who lived in self-imposed exile in the United States, had worldwide impact. He went to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to formalize a divorce so he could marry his Turkish fiance, but instead was strangled and dismembered there – allegedly by Saudi agents.

Khashoggi wrote critically of Saudi Arabia’s royal regime, and the alleged involvement of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the journalist’s slaying has put the governments of other countries under pressure to sever economic and political ties.

“Jamal Khashoggi was a very well-known figure, but you know, the most shocking statistic is that we know that nine of 10 journalist murders remain unpunished in the world,” Leruth said.

 
…